#421: GO For It: Shattering Limits in Life & Business with Heather!
4 Nov 2025 · 17 min
Heather Monahan shares how to break through mental barriers and emotional triggers. She uses Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile as a metaphor for shattering limits you think are real, and explains why observation is key to personal growth.
Questions this episode answers
May 6, 1954.
3 minutes, 59 seconds.
46 days later.
Over a thousand runners (over the last half century, per the episode).
Vue Church in Miami.
Chapters
Come on this journey with me each week. When you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity, and set you up for a better tomorrow. Fasten your seatbelts. I'm ready for my close up. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so glad you're back here with me this week. Okay, so two things I want to talk to you about today. I always feel like when I notice something during the week that really sticks out to me, it's been put on my heart because I'm supposed to share it with you. So, interestingly enough, I was out with a new friend. I met a girlfriend for a drink. And while we're out, she's telling me that she's been single for a while. This is a new friend that I've just recently met. And she's telling me she's been single and she doesn't know if she's ready to date, but she really wants to meet someone. And she describes exactly what she's looking for. Someone young, fun, she doesn't want anything too serious, blah, blah, blah. I am not making this up. Literally five minutes later, two gentlemen approach us and start talking to us. One of them fits the bill to a T. She looks at me like, this is crazy. It was so wild. I guess manifestation at its best. Speaking what you want out into the universe and it's gonna happen, or just hanging around with me and you're gonna get what you want. Okay, crazy. So we're looking at each other cracking up. Cause it's not just what she spoke into existence. And I was so happy for her because she told me, you know, she just hadn't liked anyone in so long and she was really kind of bummed out, blah, blah, blah. So she was clear on what she wanted. The situation just materialized. It was mind blowing. Well, I was so happy for it. Things were going great until they weren't. Hang with me on this one. And I'm not judging this person. To me, it was one of those moments and I wonder if you've ever had this where you're so grateful to be where you are in your life because you've been in the shoes of the other person. Do you know what I mean? This situation went from an adorable, cute, positive, great exchange within 20 minutes to awful, negative, bye. You know, off the tracks, terrible. I was the observer watching it, so I was in a very different situation. Situation. They were in it. You know what I mean? It's like when you're in it, you don't see what's Happening. And I take it back to when I was younger. I would have behaved exactly like this woman did. She was triggered by something he said, something completely innocent triggered her. And instead of being able to be, I guess, more self aware or more understanding that, oh gosh, I'm getting triggered right now. I need to take a deep breath. I need to excuse myself and go to the ladies room and see what's really going on. Am I scared? Am I afraid of being hurt? Do I feel like insecure in this moment? Because that's really what it is. I know people don't want to hear this, but it truly is. And I know this because I know me. And it's so funny because I watched this situation unravel and it went bad. It went south very quickly. Cut to a friend of mine set me up with someone I don't know. I was on a phone call with this person and the call's going great. And he said something that triggered me. And I had to, in my mind, talk myself off the ledge, knowing it had nothing to do about what he said.
Right?
Because when you react to what someone else says or does, you're giving them power and control over you. But it was my memories and my other instances in relationships where someone had said something similar and things went bad and me applying it to that moment, which, that's not fair, right? But the more you can separate yourself from your emotions and be the observer watching, boom. You change the game, right? You empower yourself and you operate at a higher, more healed level. Again, I'm not nailing this perfectly. I still get triggered, but I am becoming more disciplined and not reacting, which is giving your power away. I think back across my life, oh my gosh. If I had been able to master this in my twenties, I'd be happily married right now, right? Because I wouldn't have blown up something that was good because I was reacting out of past unhealed hurt. Because that's really what it is. And that happens at work, that happens in friendships, that happens in romantic relationships. It happens with your kids too, right? Could happen anywhere. Meet a different guest each week.
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I asked you to try to find your passion. That's why it's so important to invest in yourself. Do the personal work. The most important thing you're ever going to work on in your life is you. And it's never ending. Okay? So being the observer is my challenge to you this week. So I was observing this woman and this exchange she was having with this man she just basically prayed for out loud. Guy strolls up and while it was started so, so good, she ends up getting triggered. Well here's what I watched. It was a domino effect. When she got triggered, she started behaving badly, right? That's what we do. We either start crying or start poking fun at someone else or change our facial expression, change our phys, you know, close our arms. Like she made some very clear responses, not all with her words, many with her face, her body, you know, how she was positioning herself that she was shut off from this person. Now what is funny is it's not funny haha. But it's interesting I guess is that this gentleman who's younger, apparently he's not completely evolved yet, right? He got triggered by this and I watched it happen. So in real time they both went from all smiles and lovey dovey and so excited to meet each other and you know, touching each other's hand or it was just so cute to all of a sudden she's triggered, she's shutting down. And when she shut down, oh my gosh, did he shut down? He blew up. He was even more triggered. She was quietly being triggered. He was outwardly being triggered. So he started rolling his eyes at her, started making some comments like what the heck is wrong with you? What did I say in A very accusatory tone. This train came off the track so fast. And I know, I'm sure you've seen something like this before. Maybe you've been in it. I know I don't remember the exact examples, but I just know there's so many times in my life I was that person on either side of that. I wasn't observing, I was in it. And this is much like in your business. It's very difficult when you're in a business, running a business and to know what you need to do to evolve and grow the business because you're in the weeds so much. You can't see the forest through the trees. Same with when you're getting triggered or you're in an argument or you're right in a heated situation. It's very difficult in those moments to see the whole picture, to be the observer. And so I'm challenging you this week to not get triggered or like me when you do get triggered, instead, decide I'm going to be an observer to this. And this was a cool experience I had from. I am always investing in myself. I'm always signing up for different masterminds for programs for. I'm always reading, of course, on this podcast, I'm interviewing people who are light years ahead of me. And I'm a constant learner and I'm proud of it. Right? No one has reached the pinnacle of their life of complete knowledge, right? We can all get better in different ways. And I was having a conversation with someone that was counseling me on some different things and one of the cool things she said to me was, I want you to step out of you for a minute and I want you to observe Heather Monahan and I want you to be the outer cheerleader of Heather Monahan. Like you're watching a movie and the movie is the Heather Monahan movie, right? And it was so cool because she got me to step out of being in it and start instead observing it. And so she's like, aren't you so excited with all these amazing things that she has coming up? She's talking about me, by the way, but. But she's having me observe me in my life instead of being stuck in the day to day of it. And when I did that, I was able to say, I am so proud of her. I am so excited for her. Really. Observing your own life, observing all of your accomplishments, observing how excited and anticipating you are of the next great thing that's gonna happen. And being the observer is a really powerful move and hopefully will help you to separate from some of the negative emotions that can come up in any instance, whether it can be difficulty in business or difficulty in relationships, or just meeting someone and getting triggered by something that they said, which was really innocent, was intended innocently and received very negatively. And that ended the potential of a relationship in real time in one minute, right in front of my eyes. So I don't want you to lose that great next opportunity, whether that be for your friendships, for your business, for your romantic relationships. I'm asking you today to become the observer as I continue to challenge myself to do the same. Okay. The other thing I wanted to talk to you about, which I had forgotten about and I was reminded last night at church is, and just FYI, I always tell you this, I go to Vue Church in Miami. It is incredible. It's Christian church. Incredibly positive message about, you know, what would Jesus do? How can you live your life with an open heart and full of love and doing the next right thing and helping others? And the other message he got into last night was, you know, it's important to give and help others. And it's also important to receive and accept help for yourself, too. So I hope that you're able to give love today and receive love today from everyone that's around you and from me coming from this show, because we got nothing but love for you here. All right, I want to talk about breaking the four minute mile and what the concept of breaking the four minute mile taught everybody about the limits of what is conventional and known. Right? So if you don't know this story, I'm going to break it down for you. It's not going to take long, but I promise you, it's a really powerful story. This is from the Harvard Business Review, and the author is talking about the passing of Roger Bannister, who was the first person to ever run a four minute mile. Okay. And that's a massive legacy because, you know, not just as one of the greatest athletes of the last century, but this guy's an innovator and a change agent because what he did was iconic at the time. And it turns out that once he broke this four minute mile record, countless of other people were able to do it too. But it takes us back to that whole thing. When you see it, you can become it. And for many people, that is the case. I actually did a speech this past week for one of the largest tech companies in our country. And the woman that hired me was asking me all these questions, and really at the crux of it, it Came down to she wanted to become something she hadn't seen someone else do yet. And I had to verbalize that to her. And once I said that, she said, yeah, that's why I can't do it. Don't wait to see someone else do something. Be the change. Be the one to go for it. Because when I pitched myself for VP of Sales back, I guess when I was 30 years old, I pitched it, I sold them on it, I accepted it, I received it, and I became it. Right? You don't have to see someone else be something. You can be the light, you can be the example for someone else. And this is an important part of what I want to instill with you. But obviously it's easier when you see someone else do it. And I'm not knocking that. Okay, so let's take it back. Roger Bannister, May 6, 1954. He broke through the four minute barrier with a time of 3 minutes and 59 seconds. Okay, but what's so interesting is that to know the whole story, there's a number of different lessons here, and I'm reading quickly through the Harvard Business Review article. What Bryant reminds us is that runners have been chasing the goal since 1886. And the challenge involved the most incredible coaches, the most gifted athletes from all around the world. Everybody was trying to chase us down. For years, milers had been striving against the clock, but the elusive four minutes had always beaten them. And it had become a psychological barrier, not just a physical one. That's really important and like, you know, any type of massive, you know, task, the closer it was approached, the more daunting it seemed. What he means is like, the harder it became, the longer it took, no one had broke it, the more it seemed impossible, right? Everything is impossible until it's done. That's fact. Okay, so this was like the ultimate goal at the time, which is funny because, you know, now it's been broken so many times. All right, so everybody wanted the perfect conditions. Everybody wanted the perfect training. Everybody had these ideals. But what is funny is the British press constantly ran stories criticizing Bryant's approach, which was a lone wolf approach. He was out doing things on his own, and they wanted him to adopt a more conventional regimen of training and coaching, which he did not do. So, okay, so the four minute mile stood for decades, and when it fell and he was able to break it, the experts believed, they knew that it had to be under precise conditions, but they were completely wrong. It wasn't perfect weather. It wasn't with the Traditional, conventional training, it wasn't with the best coach in the world. He did it on a cold day. Bannister did it on a cold day. A wet track, very small meet. It was in Oxford, England, before a small crowd, not the way anyone had said that it would have to be.
Right?
The outside pundits are saying this is the only way it could be. No. When Bannister broke the mark, even his most, his biggest rivals were breathing a sigh of relief because finally somebody had done it. Finally they could see it, they could believe it. Now they could become it. And once they saw it could be done, they did it too. And they really did. Just 46 days after Bannister achieved this, John Landy did it. An Australian runner, he not only broke the barrier, but he beat Banister's time. Then a year later, three runners broke the four minute barrier in one race. Over the last half century, more than a thousand runners had broken the barrier. And it seemed hopeless for so, so long until Bannister was able to do it. Once Bannister could achieve it, others could see it, they believed it, and then they achieved it. But do you understand, it was a mental barrier, not a physical one. And it didn't go down the way that all of the experts said it would. It went down the complete opposite way than anyone had ever anticipated. Meet a different guest each week. It's that time of year again.
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I asked you to try to find your Passion. So it doesn't matter if you're a runner, if you're running a business, the bottom line is this. There isn't a just one way approach to doing things. And oftentimes the biggest barrier that you're going to be facing is a mental one, not a physical one, not a resource one, you know, not a knowledge one. It's mental. And so, so often, like my client at the tech company, if you haven't seen it yet, you're not believing it's possible for you, don't wait to see it, to believe it, right? But at the same time, if you can surround yourself and in company and with people who have been where you want to go, you will see so much more success, so much faster. And I've seen that firsthand in my mastermind over the last year. This is what reminds me of the four minute mile. Once a year I open up the doors for my mastermind and it's a community to work together with me on an annual basis. I only do it one time a year. It is open right now for the next four weeks. And what I've seen in the last year has been beyond transformative in these people's lives and in my life, frankly. Because I would have never gone to Saudi Arabia if I wasn't a part of a team where we were all pushing each other to go to the next level. I would have probably bowed out because I was scared to death to go right. That trip, that speech ended up being the biggest speech I've ever given in my life. The contacts I've made are, I can't even tell you the biggest thing I've done in the last year. And it's the largest audience I've ever spoken in front of. Ended up being 280,000 people, right? That's bigger than any US event that I've ever heard of or ever attended or ever spoken for. I wouldn't have pushed myself that far if I had not been part of this team. And here's why. Just like Bannister, once you're seeing people prove the impossible and make it possible, your belief system changes and you start stepping into what before you saw as not possible for you. Because you've seen it, they did it, now you can become it. So it's so important to, if you don't like the pace you're running at, you gotta start running with people who are ahead of you, right? Run with people in a tribe that not only support, encourage and hold each other accountable, which is key in success, but are Also becoming the things that you want to become. And real quick story, one of my clients and team members in my mastermind over the past 12 months started out in a huge job which she was making a ton of money. Everyone on the outset thought she was so successful. She was miserable and that's why she joined my mastermind. She wanted to create some massive change in her life. She knew she had more to give. And over the last year I have seen this woman completely change her mindset. She left that job by the way, that no one ever thought she would leave. I'm so proud of her. She joined a startup, she has this incredible new role. She's financially so set up now in this new situation. Right. She'd been telling herself there was no other positive financial situation for her to shift to. She found it, she created it, she landed it. She's doing it. She's so happy, she's treated with respect. She is now empowered to give it her TEDx talk. She is now empowered to launch her personal brand. She's now empowered to share and elevate others. All these things that are so important to her because she was running with a tribe that was living that life and making those changes and, and just like Bannister, when she saw it, she could finally believe that she could become it. And she did. And I am so incredibly proud of her. And I have so many other stories exactly like that one but very similar to that one and the tribe and team on my mastermind this year I'll share a different one with you each week. But until next week, I want to tell you this. Number one, don't allow others to trigger you. You're going to miss out on massive opportunity if you do and shut the door too early, possibly on opportunities that maybe there could be something bigger and better for you in if nothing else, you're going to develop the muscle of self control and managing your emotions which is priceless. And number two, just like Bannister when he broke that four minute mile, he changed the game for everyone else because people finally believed that they could do it too. I want you to be it so others can see it. I want you to change that idea of what's impossible is impossible for you. Maybe it's impossible for others doesn't mean it's not possible for you, just means you haven't done it yet. Yet being the operative word. And if you are not running with a team and a crew that is ahead of you, that is encouraging you, that is holding you accountable and that is becoming it. So that you can be it too. Join my mastermind. You can apply the link is in the show notes below. You can set up a 15 minute call with one of my mastermind peeps who will answer all the questions for you. Until next week. Keep creating your confidence. You know I will be. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're gonna hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably something will happen. No one succeeds alone. You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it. Come on this journey with me.
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